Immigrant Zero

April 12 marks the 60th anniversary of the passing of Ahmad Zaki Abu Shadi. Most historians of Egypt mark the end of the so-called “liberal era” from the date of the 1952 coup. A more fitting date would be April 1946, when Abu Shadi immigrated to America *, one step ahead of the twins of Egyptian oppression, the secret policeman and the religious fanatic. A mere decade earlier, Abu Shadi was a luminary of Egypt’s cultural scene, a doctor by day and a poet, translator and cultural reformer by night. He bore the stigmata of the rare Egyptian liberal, advocacy for the right of women to control their lives and their bodies. The intervening years were bad for his kind. In 1933 a budding Egyptian thinker, Sayyd Qutb, published in Abu Shadi’s magazine “Apollo”. A decade later he would denounce similar men as “Brown Englishmen”. Qutb and Abu Shadi, once companions, were now sailing in opposite directions. Having left Egypt for America, Abu Shadi made a remarkable confession of faith, writing for a radio program “For the sake of freedom, I preferred to leave my country when tyranny was throwing independent thinkers into chains”. Qutb, returning to Egypt from America would speak of how independent thinking in the West led men to become “numb to faith in religion”.

Perhaps there were earlier Egyptian immigrants to America, but Abu Shadi’s public act of immigration, rare for its time, should earn him the distinction of “Immigrant Zero”. More immigrants would follow him, seeking either freedom or opportunity, or both. Many would not share his vision, but bring Egypt’s divisions and ills along for the ride. Even after decades of immigration, there is no large representative “hyphenated” group that espouses broad liberal values, especially with an eye for implementation in Egypt. It is not that the immigrants and their descendants lack men and women holding these views; it is that they are so far unable to create a viable block. The situation mirrors the travails of liberal political currents in Egypt. Even with the third generation of immigrants now coming into adulthood, there seems to be no movement toward building such groups. Many walk away in despair of the seeming insolubility of the Rubik Cube of Egypt and freedom.

It is unfair to expect a small group of immigrants to lift the fortunes of their Motherland. But it is not too much to ask them to preach the values they witness every day in lives frequently better than any they might have had in Egypt. This observation brings us back to the point made amply by Abu Shadi and his cohorts; that political oppression in Egypt is a by-product of social oppression, rather than its cause. The nation’s constrained and unreasoned attitudes towards religion and sex make it easy for many a demagogue, on any of the polarized sides, to mobilize followers and marginalize opponents. The situation has not gotten better with time either. The “chains” of Abu Shadi’s lament may now seem velvety by comparison.

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* Abu Shadi’s work can be found in two locations. “The Bee Kingdom“, collated by his granddaughter, artist Joy Garnett. Also, at the library of the University of Utah, placed there by historian Aziz Atiya, who followed him into immigration by a few years, and was his one-time neighbor in Alexandria.